What's the best measure of a player's performance? While some are content with conventional stats like points, rebounds, and field goal percentage, I believe the best gauge of a player's worth to a specific team comes from looking at the difference in how the team plays with the player on court versus performance with the player off court.

Now this rating isn't an absolute measure of a player's ability, but it does represent how successful a player is with a given team. In general the player with the best Roland Rating on a team is the difference maker (exclude the guys who play a statistically insignificant number of minutes). When the top guy is on the floor the team performs at a much higher level.

These ratings represent a player's value to a particular team and are not intended to be an accurate gauge of the ability and talent of the player away from the specific team.

Finally there are two separate Roland Ratings we produce currently, one is based on raw +/- performance on court versus off, while the other adjusts the numbers based on the quality of the opposing players on the floor. The following table has the unadjusted ratings.

Roland Ratings for NBA 2002-03 Regular Season
Sorted by Rating, also see full list of players, and team by team ratings

[Minimum: 30% of team total minutes]

Rank

Team

Player

Min

On Court +/-

Off Court +/-

Roland Rating

1

MIN

Garnett

84%

+5.8

-17.1

+22.8

2

DAL

Nowitzki

79%

+11.6

-6.5

+18.0

3

SAS

Duncan

80%

+8.1

-6.2

+14.3

4

DAL

Finley

67%

+11.9

-0.6

+12.5

5

ORL

McGrady

75%

+2.9

-8.9

+11.8

6

LAL

O'Neal

64%

+6.5

-5.1

+11.7

7

UTA

Ostertag

49%

+8.0

-2.6

+10.7

8

MIL

Kukoc

43%

+6.3

-4.3

+10.6

9

LAL

Bryant

85%

+3.8

-6.5

+10.3

10

IND

Artest

58%

+7.6

-2.6

+10.2

11

BOS

Pierce

78%

+1.7

-8.4

+10.1

12

NJN

Kidd

76%

+7.8

-2.3

+10.0

13

BOS

Battie

43%

+5.0

-4.6

+9.6

14

DET

Williamson

52%

+8.0

-1.1

+9.1

15

DET

Barry

37%

+9.3

+0.3

+9.0

16

SAC

Christie

68%

+9.4

+0.4

+9.0

17

POR

Pippen

48%

+7.1

-1.7

+8.8

18

HOU

Francis

83%

+3.0

-5.7

+8.7

19

TOR

Carter

37%

-0.4

-9.0

+8.6

20

DEN

Hilario

57%

-4.8

-13.0

+8.2

Kevin Garnett emerges as the player who was most important to his team in the NBA regular season last year. While the numbers are fun to look at in a league wide basis, the best use is on a team level where you can assess which players are producing and which aren't in the climate and roster of a specific squad. To see the ratings from a Team perspective click here